Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Sock Obsession

So no sooner do I finish my Jaywalkers than I begin another pair. I'm really not following in the footsteps of Wendy, honest. This is a genuinely spontaneous sock obsession. I give you Regia India Cotton in Rajastan from this shop:

I'm doing short-row toes and heels, and decided not to pick up the double wraps on the heel. I think it actually looks kind of cool:

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Finished!

Sockapaloooza Jaywalkers finished:

From another angle:

The pedals you see are on my Babe Double-Treadle Production wheel, on which I am spinning laceweight cormo singles. I'm getting about 30 wpi, which, since I have 4 ounces of cormo to spin, means I will be spinning this for the rest of my life. The ultimate goal is a cormo lace shawl. We shall see if that ever happens.

Monday, April 10, 2006

A tale of two socks

Some teachers enjoy assessment (testing and grading). They like to see how their students perform so that they can tailor their instruction to bring the best out of each individual student. Or, perhaps they are misanthropes who simply enjoy throwing eight-page tests in the faces of their trembling teens, hoping that a majority will fail so that they (the teachers) can make big juicy red marks all over the papers before handing them back.

I hate assessment. Oh, I like to see how my students are doing, but I HATE grading papers, which is what I've been doing for the last two solid weeks. It's the end of third quarter here at the school, and all my blogging time has been eaten up by either grading or grad school. But the knitting time is sacred, and not even grading papers may be allowed to interfere. Therefore, I have for you the long-awaited next installment in the...

SOCKAPALOOOZA GRAND ELIMINATION FINALS

Remember the nice little self-striping socks I started just after the sock pals were announced? Yeah, those were too small. So I dyed up some gorgeous, Koigu-like superwash to try again, this time with the fabulous Pomatomous pattern from Knitty.

I knitted an entire sock before I had to face the inevitable. THEY WERE TOO SMALL!!!!! My feet are the same size as my sock pal's, so I knew if they didn't fit me, they wouldn't fit her.

(insert sounds of weeping)

The extreme, screaming brightness of the pink pomatomous makes it hard to tell, but believe me, it was a stretch to get it on my foot. Here's a close-up, for effect:

So what am I left with? A single too-small Pomatomous and about 300 yards of hot pink superwash. I am gripped with indecision. So I take the easy way out. I dig some of my own TwoWaters handdyed out of the stash and cast on a pair of Jaywalkers.

One finished sock later, glory be! It fits! for comparison's sake, I give you the too-small Pomatomous next to the perfect-fit Jaywalker:

And so here's the second Jaywalker, nearing completion.

I shall meet the deadline, after all. So much carnage for one simple sock exchange. I hope she likes them. I think I'll send her the leftover screaming pink along with the finished pair of Jaywalkers so that she can redeem it and give it a purpose. It certainly will never leave my stash any other way.